


The Dying Girl

by leydileyla



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Auror Reader, Character Death, Dark Magic, Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, One Shot, One of My Favorites, Pain, Painkillers, Post-Hogwarts, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Sad and Happy, St Mungo's Hospital, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28771710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leydileyla/pseuds/leydileyla
Summary: You find out you are dying, and you spend your last days with your boyfriend, Draco Malfoy.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	The Dying Girl

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request on my Tumblr account (@leydileyla), it is a subject that has taken me out of my comfort zone, and it was hard, and painful and creatively speaking, I loved the process of writing this piece. It turned out much longer than I intended it to be. The idea of death differs to every individual, everyone chooses to overcome the thought of it differently, some of us fear, some of us accept, some of us deny the truth of it. So this was a piece that I truly am proud of.

_People around you. Rushing, shouting at one another. You couldn’t open your eyes. You heard their footsteps, running. You weren’t running. But you were moving with their footsteps. You lost your consciousness again, slipping into the shadows that called._

~

“HOW? THERE HAS TO BE A WAY! YOU ARE A FUCKING HEALER FOR FUCK SAKE, THIS IS YOUR JOB!” You heard him shouting. You slowly opened your eyes as you tried to return back to reality.

“Draco,” you managed, pushing your whole body to form the word. The word that was usually the easiest to call out.

You saw the blonde, as you opened your eyes, the light suddenly invading your world. It hurt, your whole body wanted to push the light out, you wanted to return to the dark, the tranquil. He left the person he was standing next to, in the corridor, to come to you. Closing the space between you in quick, large steps, he crouched down beside the bed you were lying in, taking your small hand in his.

“Darling,” was all he could manage, looking into your eyes, like he was trying to catch you. To catch you from falling. He looked like he had been crying, his hair was a mess, his clothes looked like he had been wearing them for the past few days. After taking in every single detail of the light of your life, you looked around the room you woke up in. Cold, white walls. A small table next to the bed, with flowers on it. A window, looking out to the gloomy, dark weather. Pale blue floor boards, illuminated by the white lanterns hung on the wall. And the feel of the cream coloured sheets, crinkling against your cold skin. _A hospital_ , you thought, finally putting the pieces together.

“What happened to me?” You asked your other half. You wish you hadn’t. He paused for a second, before letting himself go, burying his head into the cold sheets, never letting go of your hand. You watched his shoulders swell up and shrivell down with each sob. Letting himself go, as if he had been keeping everything inside. You couldn’t react. Draco was melting in front of your eyes, melting back to the boy, whom you had healed with together, after the war. You had never seen him shed a tear, since the first year you had been together. You wanted to lift your hand, to run your fingers through his hair. He didn’t let you. He held on tighter, weeping harder. You felt your senses coming back, but all you could feel was pain. The numbness left itself to strain.

“Draco, I’m sorry,” his shoulders stopped. Slowly, lifting his head, you saw he had a sad smile on his lips.

“No, no don’t be sorry, don’t be silly, I-ARGH!” he shouted with agony into the air, punching the empty side of the bed, startling you.

“I.. I’m sorry, I can’t-” he said not looking at you, not being able to hold back his tears. Feeling a horrendous pain in your shoulder, you leaned over to him, pulling his head towards you. He looked up to you, behind blue eyes, slightly lifting his body to rest his head on your shoulder. You could feel your shoulder burning, but tried not to let him on. Trying to calm him, with your presence. You looked over to the man Draco was talking to when you first woke up, he was standing at the door frame, watching you two. _A healer_ , you thought.

“What’s wrong with me?” You asked the healer, over the trembling boy’s head. You felt confusion. Not being able to remember anything. Draco lifted his head as if to answer your question, only to notice the question wasn’t aimed at him. He looked back and forth between the man and you, eyes filled with horror. The healer came closer, slowly, seemingly not wanting to invade you and your lover’s exchange. He stopped by the bed, Draco stood up, moving to the side, looking away, as though he couldn’t bear to hear what the healer was about to say.

“You had an accident, Y/N. At work. You were searching for a fugitive, investigating his home. When you touched an object.” A glimpse of green, your fingers, reaching towards it.

“It was a ring.” You whispered, suddenly remembering the object calling you. The green jades seemed to lure you in. You couldn’t resist the urge to brush your fingers against it.

“Yes, it was.” The healer said, taking a note on the parchment he was holding. When he finished writing, he took a deep breath, “The ring was..cursed. It was laden with dark magic, designed to lure in anyone around it and..”

“I’m going to die.” You managed. Knowing what he was going to say before he could say it. You could feel it. After all these years of being an Auror, you knew death. You knew when it was close. You could see it. See it in your lover’s eyes, reflecting back to you.

“We will try our best to make it..easier, and maybe give you more time. But, there is nothing we can do to stop the inevitable.” You heard Draco, pulling in a shaky breath, trying to stop the tears.

“How long?” You asked, knowing it would not change anything.

“I can’t say anything for certain, death is something we still don’t fully understand. It comes when it wishes, I can only give a guess based on your vital signs. But it seems like,” he stopped, Draco turned towards the window, biting on to his arm, trying to repress the screams of agony.

“A month,” the healer completed his sentence. You blinked, surprised how calm you felt. Death. You had seen death, felt it. So your dad was right, being an auror did come with its difficulties. Death being one of them.

“Leave us,” Draco coldly said to the healer. He nodded and left the room. The room felt much colder.

“Come here,” you said, shifting over, wincing with pain, patting the empty side of the bed with your hand. He came over, with his shoulders low, never breaking his eye contact, scared that if he looked away, you would disappear into nothingness.

He carefully lowered himself on to the cold sheets. Putting his legs up, resting them next to yours, wrapping his right hand fingers around your left hand.

“I’m scared,” he whispered,

“Don’t be,” you answered back, using the last energy left in your body to give his right hand a squeeze.

“How?” He asked you, with genuine concern and curiosity in his voice. But you had already fallen asleep, drifting off into the tranquil of the darkness.

~

You were sitting in your mahogany rocking chair, your back supported with the softest cushions Draco could find. He was cooking, you were watching him, the light hitting from behind him, almost making him glow. You had been let out of St Mungo’s, the previous evening, with a bag full of potions and elixirs, claiming to ease the pain. They didn’t. Your boyfriend was cooking you your favourite meal. You couldn’t bear to tell him you had no appetite. He wanted to do something for you, anything. You had talked about the idea of going to different healers, trying alternative ways. You didn’t want any of it. You knew you were dying. That was the thing with dark magic, it made the sufferer know, and feel everything. Draco was desperate, he begged you, but in the end he respected your decision when you said, you wanted to spend your last days with your lover, and family and friends, not in hospital rooms, chasing after false hope.

“I love you,” he said, the light illuminating him like a Greek God.

“I love you too, my prince.” You had started calling him your prince in your first few interactions you had ever had with him. He would call you Princess, so you called him your Prince. You had not used the nickname for a while now. He turned to see you when you used the reminiscent nickname, his eyes full of love and pain. Leaving the food, he walked to crouch down beside you,

“Marry me Princess,” Tears. Tears running down your eyes, for the first time since you had woken up in the cold, hospital room. You didn’t know if they were for joy, or for sorrow, or for the longing of a future that you could have had together. You lifted your arm to touch his cheek, brushing the soft skin with your fingers. As though to feel the life that lay underneath.

~

Velvet. The velvet, a mesmerising jade colour wrapped around your body. You looked at yourself in the mirror, sitting on a stool, your lover standing right beside you. You had shrunken a size in a week, losing weight as each day passed. Like your soul was being sucked away with every passing moment. Draco, was also looking thinner than he was, he wouldn’t eat like he used to, and he refused to sleep properly. He said he wanted to watch you, he didn’t want to miss a second. You wished you could stay awake with him, but the pain and all the elixirs you were using, made you sleep.

It was your wedding day, it had only took a week for everything to come together. All of your friends, your family and Draco had worked together to make it perfect. You wanted to wear the jade velvet dress you had on. It was a small joke you had between death and yourself. The same colour your soulmate adored and the same colour that called you to death.

“You look beautiful,” he said, looking at you through the mirror, almost as if to create a false reality through it.

“Oh please, I look deadly,” you joked, without laughing,

“Please don’t,” he swallowed, “I can’t-” you stopped him, putting your left hand on his heart, with the same hand you touched the ring.

“I’ll be here. I’ll always be here. Whenever you miss me, whenever you need me, just look into your heart Draco, your heart is were I have always been, and it will be the place I will always be,” you said. “I know I’ll be there, as long as you let me.”

“You’ll always be in my heart Y/N.” He sobbed, not being able to stand strong.

“Everyone’s waiting for you, we’re ready you guys!” one of your bridesmaids voice called in to the room, as her head popped around the door frame, “Oh, sorry,” she said, noticing the air between you two.

“No it’s fine, come on darling, we’ve got a wedding to go through with, unless you’re planning on bailing on me,” you said, and this time you caught a smile from him.

“Let’s go Princess,” he said as he helped you get up from the chair you were sitting in. You tried to make a strong face, walking was getting much harder. But you wanted him to remember you happy and lively on your wedding day, so you had taken a whole bottle of a pain calming potion, without telling him. You wanted a perfect day, the day you two would truly become one.

~

You were looking out of the window, watching the leaves fall when he came in with a tray, a tray topped with chocolate and a warm cup of tea. You could feel the dark calling you over. It was getting harder and harder to open your eyes when you wanted to wake up. His light was the only thing that called you back.

“It’s not the opposite you know,” you said to him, as he settled in bed, next to you, where you two had been spending most of your days together. You could barely walk without his help, your body failing you when you wanted to move the slightest. The pain was getting worse, sometimes you caught yourself wishing it was over.

“Sorry?” He asked, not understanding what you meant to say,

“Death is not the opposite of life but an innate part of it. By living our lives, we nurture death.” You said, still not moving your eyes from the leaves that were falling to the ground. “It’s a quote from Murakami. I had never truly understood it until now.” You stopped. Grasping the moment, with your lover by your side, the beautiful autumn leaves falling.

“I’ll miss you,” he said.

“And I believe I will too. Wherever I end up, I’ll be searching for you,” you looked at him. He moved slowly towards you, planting a small, tender kiss on your lips. You wanted the kiss to last forever, so you buried it in to your soul, to take it with you.


End file.
